David Mottershead

• Managing a portfolio of small and medium-sized business clients across various industries.
• Preparing year-end statutory accounts using IRIS Accounts Production. Client records come in a variety of states ranging from bank statements to draft statements prepared by an inhouse accountant.
• Managing bookkeeping, VAT returns, and management accounts for clients using Xero.
• Basic Corporation Tax Computations using IRIS Business Tax.
• Experienced in using BrightPay and Sage Payroll to produce payroll reports.
• Use of AI tools such as Google AI Studio to reduce time spent on jobs.
• Production of reports for each assignment containing recommendations aimed at enhancing client profitability, significantly adding value beyond U&W's standard procedures.

In April 2025 redeveloped the firm's website, resulting in a substantial first-month performance increase:

• Website visitors rose by 4000%
• Search engine visibility surged by 8000%

The updated website features interactive JavaScript tax calculators providing real-time results and comprehensive explanations.

The website uses advanced SEO techniques, including Schema markup, and scores 100% on Google’s PageSpeed Insights SEO tool.

Wrote all articles and content. The site's articles automatically update each tax year, importing the latest tax rates and thresholds directly from tax tables.

• Launched a business developing travel websites: dubai-online.com, visitnorthwest.com, bermuda4u.com, and visitkievukraine.com.
• The sites were extremely successful. At its height dubai-online.com had traffic of more than 1 million visitors each month and was one of the top 50 most-visited websites in the Middle East.
• The sites run on a highly customised version of WordPress. Approximately 100,000 lines of bespoke code were added to the core product to create these sites.
• Sites make extensive use of complex integrations with third party APIs and services (ticket listings, hotel bookings, Google Maps, live currency data, weather data, and more).

The sites suffered a massive drop in traffic due to travel restrictions during the pandemic and further, more recent losses due to changes in Google's algorithm. They are still online, but not maintained or updated, and now only generate a residual income.

In May 2004 the company implemented a new leasing system. It was launched without testing and consequently nearly all transactions during the year were incorrectly posted to the nominal ledger. The project involved:

• Reconciliation of accounts between the leasing system and the nominal ledger (Sage Line 200). This resulted in the recovery of £200,000 that had incorrectly been recorded as received from debtors.
• Identification, reversal and correction of a high volume of incorrect postings.

Towards the end of the contract, prepared the year-end financial statements and audit file.

• Company Overview: Chartered Accountants based in London with a contract to audit EU projects.
• Successfully fulfilled a series of contracts auditing EU-funded projects for the reconstruction of the infrastructure of Bosnia and other Eastern European countries.
• Demonstrated ability to work in difficult and unusual circumstances as audits carried out at beneficiaries’ offices located mainly in Bosnia.
• Showed capability to learn quickly as work necessitated rapid understanding of complex EU rules and regulations.

• Company Overview: Largest offshore bank in the world.
• Responsible for preparing monthly management accounts and reports. Included monthly meeting with senior bank figures to explain budget variances.
• Formulated the fee revenue budget for year-ended December 2001 under tight time restraints. In October 2000 the Bank decided to change its year-end from June to December as part of the preparation for listing on the NASDAQ. Consequently, the budget had to be set in a short time. This budget held up well against actual figures.
• Vastly improved the billing process. By carefully supervising the billing administrator, substantially reduced the number of incorrect invoices issued.
• Rehired on a contract basis after leaving to prepare monthly management accounts and train the replacement Assistant Financial Controller.

• Developed a computer model for reporting client profitability. The model identified unprofitable clients and led to appropriate action being taken (increase fees/efficiency or terminate relationship).
• Included a period of secondment as Temporary Financial Controller of the Bank’s office in the Cayman Islands. In May 2000, the Financial Controller of the Bank’s Cayman office unexpectedly vacated the position. Successfully filled the role for 2 months until a permanent replacement was found. The period of my secondment included the Bank’s year-end and the audit passed without difficulty. This role involved the supervision of 3 staff.

• Audited the Bank of Bermuda (Cayman) Limited. Travelled to the Cayman Islands and audited the Banking, Money Transfer and Reconciliations departments.
• Conducted money laundering investigations. Worked on a number of cases for the Bermuda Police Commercial Crime Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
• Performed a significant part of the Bank’s annual audit on behalf of KPMG.
• Audited the Bank of Bermuda (Singapore) Limited.
• Travelled to Singapore and audited the Private Clients Department.
• Conducted numerous other audits: Bank’s Medical Fund, Bermuda Trust Company Limited fee income, Sub-custodian reconciliations audit etc.

• Successfully planned, supervised, and reviewed the work of junior audit staff, ensuring high-quality audit engagements delivered to deadlines.
• Appointed audit senior for the firm’s largest individual client. This was a new engagement requiring the ability to document and assess accounting systems, identify key risks, and design a tailored audit programme from scratch.
• Prepared financial statements for sole traders, partnerships and companies. Client records were often poor and incomplete.
• Actively contributed to staff development by training new team members in the preparation of financial statements, showing a commitment to knowledge-sharing and team growth.

• Provided essential clerical and administrative support in a busy unemployment benefit office.
• Assisting with the processing and management of benefit claims.